Audio News

Audio News for January 10, 2014

Financial Struggles in the Performing Arts; IPv6 - Latest Revision of the Internet Protocol; Wireless Speaker and Audio Association Grows; Record Amount of Innovation at 2014 International CES

Published on January 10, 2014

Financial Struggles in the Performing Arts – The New York City Opera collapsed at the end of September. Michael Bloomberg said “The business model doesn’t seem to be working.” That is becoming painfully true with many performing arts groups, although some keep going, largely because their supporters are willing to forgo sound business practices and donate their money for the sake of art—the essence of patronage. One cannot say the opera and concert audiences are going away – the NYC Opera was packed for its final production of Anna Nicole. The board chairman of the Minnesota Orchestra said that somehow they had run up a deficit even though they had locked out the musicians and give no concerts for over a year. One expert observed that organizations that place money before music have lost their way. According to the New Yorker, anyone feeling compelled to use the phrase “business model” might want to steer clear of the performing arts.

IPv6 – Latest Revision of the Internet Protocol – The IP, providing an ID and location system for computers on networks and which routes all traffic across the Internet, has a new revision from the Internet Engineering Task Force dealing with the continuing problem of address exhaustion with the old IPv4 standard. The vast majority of Internet traffic still uses IPv4. With the ever-increasing number of new devices being connected to the Internet, the need arose for more addresses than IPv4 can accommodate. IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses instead of the 32-bit addresses used by IPv4, and has a hugely greater capacity, but unfortunately the two protocols are not interoperarable, which complicates the transition to IPv6.

Wireless Speaker and Audio Association Grows – The WiSA Association is an industry group dedicated to bringing reliable, high-performance wireless surround sound audio products to the home theater market. They have more than doubled their membership in 2013, increasing from ten companies in 2012 to 25 in 2013. The VP of Anaview said “Delivering high performance Class D amplifiers with efficient power supplies for the wireless speaker industry is a high priority for us and our customers,” and a spokesperson for Tymphany said “Delivering high-definition wireless audio solutions is a strategic priority for us.” Their goal is to provide users with interference-free, wireless HD digital audio products that are easy to set up and interoperate with other compliant CE devices such as HDTVs, home audio systems, set-top boxes and more.

Record Amount of Innovation at 2014 International CES – The CES, which ends today in Las Vegas, has over 3200 exhibitors across the largest show floor in history – over two million net square feet. Innovation and the promise and power of technology drove the show this year. The show is considered the largest showcase of innovation on the planet. 25 exhibitors revealed new products during Press Day on Monday. Among the new products were smart earbuds that pair up with an app on a smartphone to monitor pace, location and heart rate using sensors built into the earbuds, and “Jarvis” – a hands-free headset which interacts with a smartphone. There were also many displays of the new UHD (not 4K, although many are called that) TVs and hi-res audio. Audi introduced its Sport Quattro hybrid concept car, which gets 90 miles on a single gallon of gas and has laser headlights three times strong than LEDs. (Oh-oh…)